


like sea water over his body

by spacecleavage



Category: Sanditon (TV 2019), Sanditon - Jane Austen
Genre: 1x07, Canon, F/M, Sidney PoV, sandcastle scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 04:17:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20960339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacecleavage/pseuds/spacecleavage
Summary: "Sidney pursed his lips and reminded himself to bite his tongue. It would not do to insult someone who could be the lynch pin to his brother’s entire Sanditon scheme."sidney's thought process after running into charlotte during the sandcastle competition





	like sea water over his body

**Author's Note:**

> back again. just been plodding along with this one and it is finally to a point where i am semi happy with it
> 
> based on these 2 prompts: "Sidney's inner thoughts (and indignation perhaps?) on Eliza referring to Charlotte as "that girl" and a "sweet little thing" in the 1x07 promo" and "a conversation between Sidney and Eliza, and she brings up Charlotte and Sidney realizes something"
> 
> also an exercise in can i write a piece without dialogue

Sidney pursed his lips and reminded himself to bite his tongue. It would not do to insult someone who could be the lynch pin to his brother’s entire Sanditon scheme.

Eliza was all that he remembered her to be; elegant, eloquent and all a lady should be, but unlike when he was young, he was not blind to her flaws, like her pride, her vanity and her subtle attempts at manipulating him. He could not help but study all their past interactions and wonder if she had been manipulating him there as well, but he had been too blinded by his own affection to see it.

Still, it would not do to insult her by calling her out for such behaviour, she was still too important to this venture. With his own investment into Sanditon, he felt like he had to take and even more hands on approach with assisting his brother.

She smiled coyly up at him, as she asked a question about the bathing machines.

He was struck by how much she seemed to do that, smile at him like they shared a secret, or the way her hands seem to grasp at him a little too much. Maybe she really had missed him, had regretted marrying another, but then why hadn’t she reached out to him sooner? From the information that he had been able to gather, her husband had been dead near a year and a half, but still she had not written him or used her connections to reach out. It was only now, when it had become public knowledge who Miss Lambe was, and how he was her guardian, that she had sought him out.

He tried to repress the resentment that coiled in his belly at the thought of her using him.

Charlotte had never used him, had never tried to manipulate him into doing something he did not need or want to do. Indeed, Charlotte had an ability to call him out with surprising accuracy and she was not scared to do it.

Eliza politely asked another question, and he tried to focus all his attention on her. But sadly, his attention was still firmly fixed on Charlotte, on the way her blue jacket seemed to make her dark eyes all the richer and her lips all the pinker.

He could admit to himself now that he had spent too long focusing on those lips. Without any effort he could picture the shape of them, how when they were smiling his heart seemed to race. He found that if he let himself daydream, it was often her lips that came to mind and how they would feel against his own. Those daydreams had changed though, the longer he had known her. He could not help wondering what they would feel like pressed against his shoulder after a heavy sleep, or against his cheek as he went out the door or grazing his forehead as he sat reading the newspaper. A small part of him whispered that those were all things he had witnessed Mary do for his brother, things a wife did for a husband.

His step faltered, but he caught himself quickly, lest Eliza actually touch him.

The realisation washing over him, much like the sea did on his morning swim. He was in love with Charlotte Heywood.

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on [tumblr](www.spacecleavage.tumblr.com)
> 
> let me know what you think


End file.
